Great Is His Faithfulness

 

Have you ever just felt like everything is against you? Life gets so hard and it just seems like even God is not listening or if He is, He is just letting you drown in a sea of troubles. Those around you let you down. You even let yourself down. The temptation is to think even God has let you down. When this happens, it becomes unbearable and you just want to give up. I can tell you this, you are not alone. 1 Corinthians 10:13 tells us that “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

We simply must endure in these times and remember that people will let us down. They are human and humans fail. We are human and humans fail. But God? No, He is not human, and He does not fail. We cannot place our faith and hopes in others, nor in ourselves, but in God.

In the difficult days of despair, we must look to the scriptures to find our hope. The Book of Laminations has a wonderful picture of these times. Open it to chapter three, where we find Jeremiah, lamenting the sorrows of the results of sin of his people and nation. Sometimes it is the sins of others that bring us troubles and sometimes it is our own sin. Listen to the cries of Jeremiah.

Lamentations 3:1
 I am the man who has seen affliction Because of the rod of His wrath.

Lamentations 3:3-7
 Surely against me He has turned His hand Repeatedly all the day.  He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away, He has broken my bones.  He has besieged and encompassed me with bitterness and hardship.  In dark places He has made me dwell, Like those who have long been dead.  He has walled me in so that I cannot go out; He has made my chain heavy.

Lamentations 3:8
 Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer.

Things are so bad; it seems God is no longer listening.

Lamentations 3:14-18
 I have become a laughingstock to all my people, Their mocking song all the day.  He has filled me with bitterness, He has made me drunk with wormwood.  He has broken my teeth with gravel; He has made me cower in the dust.  My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness.  So I say, "My strength has perished, And so has my hope from the LORD."

Have you lost your hope from the Lord?

If so then you must return to God’s Word and listen to the truth of who God is.

Lamentations 3:21-23
 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end;  they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Our hope can only be in God. His love never ceases. His mercies never fail. They are new every morning. Great is the faithfulness of the Lord.

Lamentations 3:24
 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”

Put your hope in Him, not in any other, even in yourself. Our love, our mercies, and our faithfulness, will fail us. But not His.

But wait a minute and see this important truth.

Lamentations 3:25-26
 The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.  It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.

We have to wait on God.

Lamentations 3:28
 Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him;

We have to sit in silence.

Lamentations 3:31-33
 For the Lord will not cast off forever,  but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love;  for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.

Lamentations 3:40-42
 Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!  Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven:  “We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven.

Therefore, we must take time to sit in silence and listen for Him. We are sinners who daily rebel and transgress against Him. We must examine ourselves and then repent and confess for as we see in 1 John 1:6-10 that reminds us that if “we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Repent, confess and be cleansed. Let His Word be in us. Pray for those who, in their sin, bring sorrow to our souls and let God be the one who handles them.

Lamentations 3:52-66
 “I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause;  they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me;  water closed over my head; I said, ‘I am lost.’  “I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit;  you heard my plea, ‘Do not close your ear to my cry for help!’  You came near when I called on you; you said, ‘Do not fear!’  “You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.  You have seen the wrong done to me, O LORD; judge my cause.  You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.  “You have heard their taunts, O LORD, all their plots against me.  The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long.  Behold their sitting and their rising; I am the object of their taunts.  “You will repay them, O LORD, according to the work of their hands.  You will give them dullness of heart; your curse will be on them.  You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens, O LORD.”

 

To those who seek Him with a heart of repentance and confession, His mercies are new every day. To those who reject Him and plot against His people, His curse will be upon them.

Take time to sit in silence and wait on the Lord. Great is His faithfulness. His love and mercies never end.

Us? We will fail each other, and we will fail ourselves. More importantly, we will fail God.

Put your faith in Him. Trust Him to be God over all people and over all things.

Great is His faithfulness.